High in the stratosphere miles above the North Pole, an atmospheric fortress of wind normally strengthens quietly throughout autumn. Right now, however, forecasters are watching it wobble weeks ahead of schedule—triggering warnings of a historic breakdown that could reshape weather patterns for the next two months. An Atmospheric Whirlpool Wobbling Ahead of Schedule The … [Read more...] about The polar vortex is weakening unusually early. Here’s what that could mean for the weather
Science & Nature
Permafrost Is Thawing From the Inside Out—and It’s Unleashing an Entirely New Kind of Landslide
From a helicopter flying over a remote part of Canada's Northwest Territories, geologist Joseph Young saw something that puzzled him: hillside after hillside that appeared to be collapsing. The slopes weren't just slipping. In the words he later shared with Science News, they were "just collapsing with landslides everywhere." The strange pattern led his team to describe a … [Read more...] about Permafrost Is Thawing From the Inside Out—and It’s Unleashing an Entirely New Kind of Landslide
Archaeologists Found 120,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Where They Shouldn’t Be
Seven prints pressed into the mud of a long-vanished lake in Saudi Arabia are among the oldest traces of our species in Arabia, and they may belong to travelers who left no descendants. Somewhere between roughly 112,000 and 121,000 years ago, a small group of people walked along the muddy shore of a lake in what is now the Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia. Elephants and camels … [Read more...] about Archaeologists Found 120,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Where They Shouldn’t Be
The night-sky image so incredible the NZ man behind it has been accused of using AI
A New Zealand astrophotographer layered hundreds of real exposures into one image of a sky crowded with satellites, and thousands of viewers could not believe it was genuine. The picture looks like something a computer might dream up: a dense, criss-crossing web of bright lines thrown across the night sky above a snow-capped volcano. Yet every streak in it is real. Brendan … [Read more...] about The night-sky image so incredible the NZ man behind it has been accused of using AI
Scientists Discover Two Enormous Tears in a Tectonic Plate Beneath Iran
Deep under the country's southeast, a slab of Earth's outer shell is splitting in two places at once, and geologists say the rifts may one day join. On the scale of a human life, the plates that make up Earth's crust and upper mantle barely seem to move at all. Yet they never stop, and over millions of years their slow collisions raise mountains, close oceans and redraw the … [Read more...] about Scientists Discover Two Enormous Tears in a Tectonic Plate Beneath Iran